Hacker News Reader

M_Greyon A Look Inside James Baldwin's 1,884 Page FBI File

A lot of that "thinking" is either wishful, or sculpted by people who need post-racial apathy to commit their very racially motivated crimes.

M_Greyon BAE sold cyber-surveillance tools to Arab states

>Did we learn nothing about history while our young people studied algorithms? Did taking "Computer Science" classes seclude us from the reality of how all of this would be used?

Obviously the answer to your questions is, "Enough people don't learn those lessons, don't believe it will apply to them, or simply don't care."

The time for analysis and hand-wringing was years ago, now it's just a pump-and-dump scheme at every level. The fools just think they have a place to run to, and that's the big flaw in the plan.

M_Greyon Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

No, but I don't see that as being remotely similar to someone who roleplays a bigot during sex. If I had a friend who liked to dress up like Himmler and get roundly spanked, I'm not going to judge him for it. If I have a friend who calmly remarks that maybe "Hitler really did nothing wrong," I'm going to be furious and horrified.

Lets really try not to judge people for their kinks, because they tend to be strange, inexplicable, and personal.

M_Greyon Russian FOSS activist arrested in Russia for his Tor exit-node

I suspect we'll do it here in the US too eventually, under a "national security" umbrella to, "protect ourselves some foreign cyber-terror" or such nonsense. The UK will probably do it first...

Edit: Remember that a huge portion of this country is demanding a 2000 mi long wall be built along one border... don't underestimate stupid and scared.

M_Greyon Russian FOSS activist arrested in Russia for his Tor exit-node

>And before you tell me Tor is nothing more than a privacy tool, remember that most sites ban Tor exits because the majority of users are troublemakers.

So... don't tell you the truth, because you've already decided that a bunch of anonymous people are "bad".

Have you ever considered a career in law enforcement or politics?

M_Greyon Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

So often you get stories in which a certain type of person cries, "Thought Police!" as a way to deflect from the core issues, but... this really is an example of that. As you say, the thoughts you have and express on your own time, which in no way change your professionalism, are your thoughts, period. I can't even imagine the life I would have led, the friends and colleagues I would never have had if "What you think is unacceptable, regardless of how well you act," was some kind of standard.

I also wonder how the hell some people think minds are to be changed, if the way they want to deal with them is quarantine. Most of the time, you need have some mutual knowledge and respect between two parties for one to really reach the other.

M_Greyon Take a feather and a candle: spring cleaning in 13th century Haggadah books

Dan, I'm sorry that you've taken my attempts at diplomacy as a declaration of ignorance. However diverse a billion people may be, that diversity is limited when a requirement of the claimed identity is to recite the shahada with conviction. If you can explain how that can be done, "I declare that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah; and I declare that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah...." without belief in god and a divine prophet of that god, you're going to have to walk me through it.

As to the view on apostasy: https://islamqa.info/en/20327

M_Greyon Blinded after applying contact lenses with wet hands

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A17raUVX%2B...

That appears not to be the case.

M_Greyon Take a feather and a candle: spring cleaning in 13th century Haggadah books

It might, but I think the current climate in much of the Islamic world, while not the crazed image many have, is actually pretty brutal to people within the religion who are seen as blasphemous. From what I know, and I have to admit that this isn't as much as I'd like, the process of proclaiming your faith pretty much involves accepting the existence of god, prophets, the "punishment of the grave," that kind of thing. My impression is that if you're seen to have lied about that, you're lucky just to be outcast.

tl;dr It really doesn't pay to be seen as an "apostate" in Islam, at least in most places at this time.

M_Greyon Lyft Closes $600M round at $7.5B Valuation

...Not to mention that a ton of staff would probably bail before working in the Uber "family".

M_Greyon Why Is the Pentagon a Pentagon?

Of which the largest government body is... the military. "Healthcare" is the largest expenditure, but largely to a collection of unconnected private industry... the military is a different matter.

M_Greyon Why Is the Pentagon a Pentagon?

To be clear, I was hyperbolically trying to make that exact point... I'm not truly suggesting death as an option.

M_Greyon Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

>On average, the people being arrested are more likely to attack the cops.

Compared to... people with no contact with the police? You cant actually be saying that the average arrest is resisted, can you?

M_Greyon Why Is the Pentagon a Pentagon?

There is a certain irony, given that "The Pentagon" has become at least roughly synonymous with, "Unbelievably bloated and corrupt". If the F-35 were a privately funded venture, everyone involved would have probably shot themselves.

M_Greyon Inside Blue Apron’s Meal Kit Machine

You have to wonder if the bright young things who've been "disrupting" food really understand just how poisonously hard the food service industry is? Even if all they ever did was read Kitchen Confidential I feel like they could have seen some of these issues (supply chains, employees, vendor issues) coming a mile away.

M_Greyon Take a feather and a candle: spring cleaning in 13th century Haggadah books

To be fair, I'm not sure that Islam is too enthusiastic about atheists proclaiming for it either... to put it mildly.

M_Greyon Twitter allegedly deleting negative tweets about United Airlines incident

Aggressively enforcing rules of various subreddits, no actual skullduggery that I've seen at least. So, while normally a subreddit might allow a repost, or a topic to be covered by more than one article, they crack down hard on that. In a sub like WorldNews they were being extremely quick and harsh with "US Internal Politics" for another example, which effectively kills the post.

In essence, it's just how police operate; if you were subjected to every reasonable measure police could bring to bear on you, all of the time, your life would be a misery; A legally sanctioned, totally acceptable misery, but the power of "discretion" keeps that from being the reality for "acceptable" groups.

M_Greyon Take a feather and a candle: spring cleaning in 13th century Haggadah books

Compared to the GP's "Jewish men..." notion, as though that were a useful group descriptor when it comes to behaviors. So, I suppose... compared to the often monolithic notions of Judaism that I so often encounter on and offline.

M_Greyon Twitter allegedly deleting negative tweets about United Airlines incident

That could just be a matter of attempts at a crackdown failing spectacularly. Reddit mods have been pretty aggressive in trying to prune United stories, without actually blocking or removing them. It can be enough, in other words, just to increase the friction in the system, not to eliminate bad press, but reduce its volume and persistence.

M_Greyon Boeing Dreamliner Gets $3M Cheaper Thanks to Rapid Plasma Deposition

Hmmm... do you have any first-order relatives who's names begin with "Count" or "Duke", or something along those lines?

Kidding aside though, what an amazing machine; wouldn't it be great if they were in the price-range where a group of hobbyists could pitch in to rent one together?

M_Greyon DoorDash to pay $5m to settle class-action lawsuit over independent contractors

>Yes, and probably stop enriching anyone. But again, i could argue literally the same thing about startups or anything else HN cares about, and it makes about as much sense (since you haven't said "why" this makes sense)

What, you mean we might live without internet connectivity in my toaster, or the ability for a distant CEO to brick my garage door opener?!

As for lobbying, you're going to have to point me to the lawyers lobbying against trial law on an equal footing with the trial lawyers lobby; I wasn't aware that AAJ had any serious competition anymore than the NRA did.

M_Greyon Elon Musk Has an Awkward Problem at Tesla: Employee Parking

...Really? I'm more willing than most to be skeptical of Musk and his ventures, but this is just silly. Tesla is in a make-or-break phase of their business, and I'm sure that employee parking, while important, can't be at the top of what must be a very long list.

M_Greyon Take a feather and a candle: spring cleaning in 13th century Haggadah books

...Especially when about a fifth of said ethnicity is basically atheistic as well; quite a diverse bunch really, from ultra-orthodox 'Haredi' to a purely cultural identity.

M_Greyon Tesla unveils its new ‘sleek and low-profile’ solar panel made by Panasonic

Hero worship to that degree is dangerous, blinding, and frankly a little scary to see on a site like HN.

M_Greyon Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

Who was being arrested? "Resisting" isn't some magic phrase that turns a simple encounter into a mugging by the state, sorry. As for risk, if you're a police officer you've chosen to protect and serve the public, which is a sacrifice; if you can't potentially take the risks to make that sacrifice... find a new damned job, we don't need or want you.

What is needed is extensive revamping of legislation to curb both police powers, and equipment, starting with an end to the war on drugs and associated weaponry/vehicles/agencies.

M_Greyon Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

That entire way of policing has been normalized and legalized over the decades now. For example, originally "Less Lethal" options were intended to be used in a situation an officer would otherwise have to use their firearm. Now, they're just used as compliance "come-alongs"; these kinds of things start in our prisons and then come to our streets. Now you have police tasering streakers just to stop them, or swabbing students' eyes with pepper spray to get them to submit.

Is it any wonder that "failure to comply" has become legalese for, "You've given us the right to do anything to you, up to killing you on camera."

This isn't the airlines, although obviously their customer service is appalling; this is an issue with our police.

M_Greyon The relationship between social media use and well-being

Exactly... some arguments you can only have with people you know very well... and sometimes not even then. We're only human after all, and the tribalism runs deep. If you try to have a reasonable discussion with someone about certain topics, the whole thing goes nuclear. It takes a lot of work from two people with wildly opposing views for that not to happen.

M_Greyon DoorDash to pay $5m to settle class-action lawsuit over independent contractors

The clients didn't pay them...

M_Greyon DoorDash to pay $5m to settle class-action lawsuit over independent contractors

The truth is most of these claims are worthless entirely, and people don't deserve squat. So $125 is infinitely more than they should have gotten.

...Then all the more reason the lawyers who helped them bring the suit in the first place don't deserve to be paid for empowering said fraud.

M_Greyon DoorDash to pay $5m to settle class-action lawsuit over independent contractors

I suspect the point is that if the only group which is in any way meaningfully enriched are the lawyers, there is a problem we should be examining in the underlying system.

...A system lobbied for, and legislated by said lawyers.